


Buried With Him

by rogsrsbarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 10:01:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15140696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogsrsbarnes/pseuds/rogsrsbarnes
Summary: Bucky's ashes stain his fingertips, and Steve presses them to his mouth. A final kiss of star-crossed lovers.





	Buried With Him

**Author's Note:**

> for sara

Bucky was the one that used to help Steve through his asthma attacks. Every time he heard Steve’s breathing start to rattle and wheeze, Bucky would move from his place on their couch and walk over to where Steve sat at their shared table. From there, Bucky gently guides Steve out of his chair and onto the floor of their apartment, carefully maneuvering him until he’s sitting upright. Bucky settles behind him, scooting forward so his chest presses against the blonde’s back, and his legs lay on either side of the smaller man. Chin rested on Steve’s shoulder, Bucky interlocks their fingers, inhaling and exhaling with Steve until their breathing matches. 

 

Once Steve finally calms down, and the only evidence that the attack even happened are a few sporadic coughs, Bucky peeks at his best friend from behind his shoulder and shoots him a grin, only relenting when Steve cracks a small, tired smile in return, squeezing his hand. Bucky gets up from the ground and dusts himself off before helping a wobbly Steve stand.

 

“You know what you look like? When you’re having an asthma attack?” Bucky asks, making his way back to the couch, Steve on his heels. “Like a fish flopping around on concrete. Not able to breathe n’ shit.”

 

A sharp smack is delivered to the side of Bucky’s head. “Shut the fuck up.”

 

Mouth hanging open in surprise, Bucky turns to face Steve. He’s met with an annoyed glare. 

 

He huffs. “Last time I ever help  _your _ sorry ass.” Bucky flops onto the couch, then grabs Steve’s wrist, pulling the other man on top of him.

 

Steve’s words are spoken into Bucky’s neck, and they come out muffled. “Fuck you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky brushes Steve’s hair out of his eyes. “Love you, too.”

 

Steve falls asleep to the sound of Bucky’s heart beating in his ear.

 

But they aren’t in Brooklyn anymore. They aren’t in his and Bucky’s shit apartment. They aren’t even in the twentieth-century anymore. Steve is in Wakanda. It’s 2018.

 

And Bucky is gone.

 

Oxygen stutters into Steve’s lungs and he gasps it back out. He is on the ground.

 

“ _ Oh, god _ .”

 

Steve feels like something in his chest is constricting. The serum was supposed to fix that, Steve thinks. But Bucky’s gone again. He’s gone and Steve can’t breathe and Bucky isn’t pressed against his back and he isn’t breathing with Steve and Steve is  _ there _ but Bucky  _ isn’t  _ and—

 

“ _...Steve? _ ”

 

Bile rises in his throat and he clamps a hand over his mouth. How far away was he from Bucky? Two steps?  _ Three _ ? Bucky turned into ashes and Steve stood and watched.

 

Steve removes the trembling hand from his face, finds his fingers grey, like soot.

 

He turns and retches onto the dirt.

 

Leaning back, Steve stares at the sky. He’s not sure where he is. Vision’s corpse lays by his side, and there’s solid ground beneath him, but something that he hasn’t felt in over seventy years washes over him and he is sent back, speeding over a European mountain range, and dangling off the side of a train, watching his best friend plummet to the ice waiting far below. 

 

It’s like the distance that had remained between his hand and Bucky’s is palpable. His fingers ache with it.

 

Steve swears he can hear Bucky’s body hit the ground.

 

Bucky’s scream rings in his ears, makes his head pound. He’s sick then, too.

 

Steve’s throat is raw. It didn’t feel real then, and it still doesn’t now, even after an entire lifetime. But how  _ cruel _ is it? To get him back again and again, only to have him taken away once more? 

 

What they could possibly have done to deserve this fate, Steve’s not sure. He does know one thing, though. Bucky is dead, and it’s Steve’s fault.

 

They lost each other before, were found an eternity later. And now, like it was then, Bucky is gone while Steve remains. This time, Bucky is in ashes, shoved back into the dirt by Steve’s guiding hands.

 

Steve feels like screaming. He feels like it should have been him.

 

Bucky’s absence always brings a combination of emotions—anger and pain and a heavy guilt that makes his head pound. And it never changes.

 

—

 

At Howard Stark’s expo, Bucky salutes him, and it hits them both for the first time that Bucky is  _ leaving _ . By tomorrow night, he’ll be in England, he’s going and Steve  _ isn’t _ and he may never see Steve again, but he thanks God—if he’s even real, which Bucky seriously fucking doubts, considering the circumstances—and every  _ goddamn _ star in the sky, that it’s him and not Steve because he can’t.

 

Bucky’s uniform-clad arms shake as they wrap around Steve, and he pats Bucky’s back. That’s all he can do. He watches Bucky go, and gives enlistment another shot, hope blossoming as his conversation with Erskine continues. 

 

Then, Steve goes home, and falls asleep alone. Bucky returns after midnight. Toeing off his shoes and climbing into bed with a weary smile, he lays down, facing Steve. Bucky cards his hand through Steve’s hair and ghosts his lips over Steve’s forehead. Steve presses his mouth to Bucky’s jaw and hums against it. He nestles his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck, dozing off again to the sound of Bucky’s heart beating in his ear. In the morning, Bucky is gone. He feels cold.

 

Steve is in a tent in Italy and his jacket is damp from rain and he’s not little anymore and the colonel is telling him that his best friend is behind enemy lines and most likely dead, but, please, God, he  _ can’t  _ be.

 

And he isn’t.

 

Steve finds Bucky strapped to a table and muttering, and he quickly undoes the restraints holding the other man’s wrists in place. Steve’s name pushes past Bucky’s lips weakly and his fingernails scrape across the front of the blonde’s uniform frantically, like he’s trying to make sure Steve is really  _ there, _ and the taller man soothes, “ _ it’s me, it’s Steve, come on, _ ” as he kisses his cheek softly and Bucky feels so relieved that he could fucking cry, because he’s finally  _ safe  _ and he’s going to go  _ home  _ and—

 

He never makes it back to Brooklyn.

 

Peggy tells him it’s not his fault. Steve knows that it is.

 

She tells him that they have time, and they can work it out. He crashes the plane anyways. 

 

Because where Bucky goes, Steve follows. 

 

—

 

Steve is left to gather what he can of Bucky’s ashes. It’s hard to tell the difference between his best friend and the dirt. 

 

He looks down and in his one hand, he holds a person. He holds the strongest man he’s ever known. He holds the person that he spent  _ lifetimes _ loving. He holds the person that became his home, because home was never an apartment in Brooklyn. It was Bucky, and it was both of them.

 

Now, home is soot and dust, and it can fit in the palm of his hand.

 

His fingers close in a fist around it.


End file.
